Flexible Electrospun Carbon Nanofiber@NiS Core/Sheath Hybrid Membranes as Binder‐Free Anodes for Highly Reversible Lithium Storage

Abstract

The lithium storage performance of metal sulfides is restricted by their intrinsic poor conductivity, large volumetric expansion, and involvement of insulating polymer binders during the electrode preparation process, which can be solved by constructing binder‐free hybrid electrodes with nanostructured metal sulfides grown on self‐standing conductive templates. In this work, flexible hybrid membranes with nickel sulfide (NiS) nanoparticles uniformly anchored on electrospun carbon nanofibers (CNFs) have been prepared as binder‐free anodes for high‐performance lithium‐ion batteries. The hierarchical CNF@NiS core/sheath hybrid membranes with 3D macroporous architecture can provide open and continuous channels for rapid diffusion of lithium ions to access the electrochemically active NiS nanoparticles. Moreover, the CNF can act as both a conductive core to provide efficient transport of electrons for fast lithiation/delithiation of the NiS sheath, and as a buffering matrix to mitigate the local volumetric expansion/contraction upon long‐term cycling. As a consequence, the optimized CNF@NiS hybrid membranes exhibit a high reversible capacity of 1149.4 mA h g−1 with excellent cycling stability, and high rate capability of 664.3 mA h g−1 even at a high current density of 3 A g−1, making them promising flexible and binder‐free anode materials for highly reversible lithium storage.

3D Current Collectors for Lithium‐Ion Batteries: A Topical Review

“…i,j) A carbon nanofiber@NiS core/sheath composite as a binder‐free electrode. (i,j) Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2016, Wiley‐VCH.…”

“…This CNF was used as a 3D hierarchical current collector for flexible binder‐free LIB electrodes. The active material of NiS nanoparticles was grown and sulfurized through a chemical bath deposition (CBD) process . Figure i indicates the hierarchical morphology of a CNF@NiS‐2 core/sheath nanocomposite after the optimization of the density of the NiS deposition.…”

Improving Supercapacitance of Electrospun Carbon Nanofibers through Increasing Micropores and Microporous Surface Area

“…Carbon materials (e.g., graphite, fullerene, diamond, nanotube, and graphene) and various existent forms (e.g., power, foam, fiber, fabric, and composite) have been used for making EDLC electrodes . Among the carbon materials reported, carbon nanofibers from electrospun polymer fibers (also referred to as “electrospun carbon nanofibers”) are superior to the others owing to the advantages in porous structure, surface area, stabilities, conductivity, and fabrication cost . They could be a promising material for making supercapacitor electrodes …”

Electrospun carbon-based nanostructured electrodes for advanced energy storage – A review

“…10j, a chemical bath deposition (CBD) strategy is employed to in situ grow Ni(OH) 2 nanosheets on electrospun CNFs (Fig. 10k) to form a core-shell structure [179]. Next, the Ni(OH) 2 nanosheets can be transformed to NiS nanoparticles with diameters of tens of nanometers attached on the surface of CNFs after sulfidation treatment in thioacetamide solution (Fig.…”